A 34-year-old transport minister is set to become Finland’s youngest prime minister ever and its third female government leader.
Finland’s ruling Social Democratic Party council voted 32-29 to name Sanna Marin over rival Antti Lindtman to take over the government’s top post from incumbent Antti Rinne.
Having emerged as Finland’s largest party in the April election, the Social Democrats can appoint one of their own to the post of prime minister in the Nordic nation of 5.5 million.
The mother-of-one has had a swift rise in Finnish politics since becoming head of the city council of her industrial hometown of Tampere at the age of 27.
Raised by a single mother, she has been the party’s vice chairwoman and served until this week as the minister for transport and communications.
In August she floated the idea of a four-day, 24 hour working week, telling the Helsinki Times: “A four-day work week, a six-hour workday. Why couldn’t it be the next step? Is eight hours really the ultimate truth? I believe people deserve to spend more time with their families, loved ones, hobbies and other aspects of life, such as culture. This could be the next step for us in working life.”
According to Finland’s biggest newspaper Helsingin Sanomat and the Ilta-Sanomat tabloid, Marin will become the world’s youngest sitting prime minister.
She will take over in the middle of a three-day wave of strikes, which will halt production at some of Finland’s largest companies from Monday. The Confederation of Finnish Industries estimates the strikes will cost the companies a combined 500m euros ($550m) in lost revenue.
Finland currently holds the European Union’s rotating presidency until the end of the year.
Politicians are likely to approve the appointment of Marin and her new government quickly so she can represent Finland at the December 12-13 EU leaders’ summit in Brussels.
Rinne stepped down on Tuesday after a key coalition partner, the Centre Party, withdrew its support, citing lack of trust.
The Centre Party also criticised Rinne’s leadership skills prior to a two-week strike by the country’s state-owned postal service Posti in November that spread to other industries, including the national flag carrier Finnair.
Rinne’s resignation prompted the formal resignation of a coalition of the Social Democrats and the Centre Party and three junior partners: the Greens, the Left Alliance and the Swedish People’s Party of Finland.
The Social Democrats and the four other coalition parties said they are committed to the government programme agreed upon after the April election and will continue in Marin’s new government.
The new government will still have a comfortable majority of 117 seats at the 200-seat Eduskunta (parliament).
The Social Democrats said they are seeking to have Rinne, a former trade union leader, become the parliament’s vice speaker.
He also plans to stay on as the Social Democrats’ chairman until a party congress next summer.